Library:Research Skills For Engineering Students/Module 05/Page 10
In module 5 part 2, we introduced the engineering database Compendex. But it’s not the only database you should use!
Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database. It can be especially helpful when searching for interdisciplinary aspects of your engineering problem. Like Compendex, you can find Web of Science through the Indexes and Databases tab on the UBC Library homepage.
Each database contains unique content. When we do the same search from module 5, part 2, you’ll notice we get different results than we found in Compendex. You may need to search multiple databases as part of your research process.
Like Compendex, Web of Science has many features that are helpful when searching and narrowing your results. There are a number of filters or limits on the left-side of the search results screen, and a number of ways to sort your results.
Web of Science provides the ability to sort by Times Cited, which indicates the number of times an article has been used and cited by other articles in the database. However, it takes time for an article to be cited after publication, so a lower Times Cited count does not necessarily mean that the article won’t be influential or highly cited in the future. Times Cited is one criteria you can use when evaluating search results, amongst others. You will want to decide whether or not an article is appropriate for your needs using some of the strategies discussed in module 2.
Click the article’s title to see more information about it. On the right-side, you’ll see links for both Times Cited and Cited References. Use these to find articles that cited this article (so were published after this one), as well as those cited within this article (so were published before this one). This allows you to follow citations through time, finding other articles published before and after an article. This is one way to find additional relevant articles, and should be part of your research process. Ask a librarian for help if needed!